I soooo don't look this cool in real life

Bryan from NBphotographix came by church this week to take some headshots of the staff here to be a part of an art project....this is one of the many results:


It's my 30 year old twin!

A prophetic word?

HT to Candice Watters, contributor from The Boundless Line, who quoted this in an article centered around a great explanation on our current economic situation over at Tony Woodleif's blog (who may have got it from someone else, but that's as far as I can keep track of where credit is due on this one).

This was written in 1897:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
-Alexander Tyler

...And from the looks of what I'm reading and seeing in the news, the cycle is in full swing.

Thanks, Mr. Spencer

It's an emo night...I can feel it. Sometimes it just hits me, this mentally-and-emotionally drained kind of frustration with where things are at the moment. Even Heroes had that kind of Ecclesiastes kind of vibe to it, all the characters running around trying to make a difference and never really getting anywhere (and what was the deal with Peter starting to use Sylar's power and attacking his own mother like that? Craziness!). Guilty pleasures aside, it's the Dip, as Seth Godin puts it.
The only reason I mention it is because I frequently need to be reminded more than I need to be informed when times like these come around, and posts like this one help keep things in perspective for me. You should definitely check out that link and see his site if you haven't...I just quoted the whole post here because I liked it. If I've still got this blog when I've gotten over the self-consciousness of baring my soul on the internet, you'll be seeing more of this kind of honesty in the stuff I write. At the moment, though, I can totally identify with what he's saying.

Some Christians love to talk about the sins of Obama or gays or the mainstream media, but get really animated when I suggest we need to talk about our own, even if they are listed in the Bible dozens of times.

If the Gospel isn’t grabbing you by the real sins in your real life, just exactly what is the Gospel doing for you? Or you with it?

I don’t like the fact that I can give a really good talk on prayer when I rarely pray.

I don’t like it that I can read Matthew 5:23-24 and, as far as I can recall, never take a single step toward obeying it.

I don’t like that I can sin and then condemn someone else’s sin in almost the same breath.

I don’t like it that I’m convinced people need to understand me, but I take so little time to understand others.

I regret that I’ve spent so much of my life seeking to make myself happy in ways that never led to real happiness at all.

I don’t like it that I’ve accumulated so much stuff I don’t need, and I’m so reluctant to give it away.

It causes me real sorrow that I’ve said “I love you” far to little in my life, especially to the people I love the most.

I don’t like the fact that some of my students think I’m a hero, when I’ve done nothing more than be an unprofitable servant.

I hate the difference between what I know and what I do.

I hate the fact that I can use words like “radical” describing what others should do in following Jesus when I’m the first one to want to play it safe.

I don’t like that part of me that thinks everyone should listen to what I say.

I wish I could see myself as God sees me, both in my sinfulness and in the Gospel of Jesus.

I regret using so little of my life’s time, energy and resources for worship and communion with God.

I despise that part of me that always finds fault, and uses that knowledge to put myself above others.

I am embarrassed by the words I use that come so easily from the tongue but have little root in the heart.

I regret taking so few risks in the cause of living a God-filled life.

I despise the shallowness of my repentance for sin that has caused hurt and pain for others.

I don’t like that part of me that can make up an excuse, even lie, almost endlessly in the cause of avoiding the truth and its consequences.

I don’t like that I can talk of heaven in a sermon or at a funeral, but very little of me wants to go there.

I regret that I have loved my arrogant self far than I’ve loved my self humbled in Christ.

I regret that so much good advice, good teaching and good example was wasted on me.

But I am glad for the endless mercies of the Lord, and the amazing fact that those mercies extend to me, today and every day.

I am glad that Christ my substitute took this sorry life, pathetic obedience and lethargic worship and exchanged it for his perfect righteousness.

I am glad that the Holy Spirit is remaking and raising dead men- even at age 52.

I am glad that one day I will look at all these failures and regrets and they will have been transformed into the very glory of Jesus Christ himself.

I am glad that God has cast the very things I most dislike about myself into the depths of the sea and has removed them as far as the east is from the west.

I am glad that when I return in shame and embarrassment, my Father meets me running, covers me with his gladness and throws me a party in the presence of the naysayers and pharisees.

I am glad that Jesus takes these things I loathe about myself and says “It is finished. Come you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Today you will be with me in paradise.”

I am glad Jesus says “Before I have called you servant, but now I will call you friend.”

I am glad Jesus says “Who condemns you? There is now no condemnation because you are in me and I am in you. If I am for you, who can be against you? Go, and sin no more.”

I'm glad, too.

Prepare to be inspired

Carlos Lascano somehow managed to compress Steph and I's story into a two minute video!

...Or at least this is how I would romanticize it if I had put this together. Seriously, though, this is worth watching a couple of times. I'm proud to be able to work in the same field as guys like this:


A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.


...And it was done mostly with cardboard, paper, and wires. You can read here about how he put it together. Enjoy!

My co-workers are better then yours ;)

They sang and everything...the media team ROCKS!

Falling Slowly

I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover The Swell Season...ah, well. Better late than never, I suppose...

Duude!

My wife plays Rock Band.....that is so hot!

Why the FRC Media Team loves the office staff

I have to admit, we media guys get lonely sometimes. We're in an entirely different building than pretty much everyone else on staff, so when everyone else is celebrating a birthday or freaking out because someone's water broke in the middle of a meeting (which hasn't happened yet, by the way), we continue to edit video behind our glowing screens, blissfully oblivious to all the action that happens next door.

But not today, because today, we got brownies!


Much love to Beverly, who is Garland's assistant and our current favorite person in the office (behind Vicky, who writes our paychecks)

Question

Could Mauricio pull this off?

I just stuck my toes into

...the twitter pool...I may have a new addition to that sidebar on the right pretty soon...

Oops

I am soooooo glad that this has never happened to Pastor Troy. 

Here's the gist of it:

KKOKOMO, Ind. - A pastor brought out a dirt bike during a church service to demonstrate the concept of unity. Now he's demonstrating the concept of healing.

Jeff Harlow, the senior pastor at Crossroads Community Church, broke his wrist when he lost control of the motorcycle at the start of Sunday's second service, driving off a 5-foot platform and into the vacant first row of seats. He underwent surgery on the wrist Monday.

"Jeff has already laughed a lot, so he's OK. I think his pride was bruised," said his wife, Becky.

Indeed. I'm really glad he's okay and that no one got hurt. Still, the part of me that will garner angry emails for saying the following can't help thinking about the kinds of things that could happen as Pastors continue to get more creative with stage props. Maybe we can start calling them Stunt Pastors. It will be a new kind of extreme sport :-p

Caption please?

This was taken at a recent video team shoot....any caption ideas?

The ugliest fish I've ever seen

This fish is so ugly, it's funny....this, I think, is proof that God has a sense of humor...

Don't say I didn't warn you...

Si vous ple?, part one

Field trip! 

Tonight about 15 of us from Elevate piled into our cars and went to visit the folks over at The Rendezvous. They are a college ministry that meets at Trinity Church in Miami, and let me tell you, they are knocking that ministry out of the park over there.  Think 7|22 meets calle ocho.

What really got me fired up was the conversations I was able to have with the guys in leadership there.

If you were leading a group that in less than a year went from 40 to over 900, you might be tempted to put on some airs about you, and in some circles, that might be expected. What thrilled me was meeting a crew of people who were passionately committed to following God into what was, and in many ways still is, unfamiliar territory, while being totally aware of Who was really behind it all. I came away from our conversation inspired to run even harder after the potential that our own gathering has.

It got me to thinking of a passage I read this morning from 2 Samuel on the YouVersion app I downloaded to my iPhone yesterday (which will probably be its own post in the near future. Here's the synopsis: go and download YouVersion now).

It's the seventh chapter, and since I'll probably misquote it if I try to recite it from memory (don't look at me like that; you don't have it memorized either), you can read it here so that we're on the same page.

One of the things I love about David (besides him being a musician) is that he had initiative. He went after Goliath without waiting for word from a prophet, and he has that same gumption (I'm not from the South; can I  use that word?) later in his life when the time comes to build a temple. 

Granted, God stops him before he builds it, but what gets me is that God doesn't get mad at him for it. God doesn't put a wall in front of him, he redirects him. 

Interesting thought, huh?

I'll finish this one later...until next time...

What I'm doing right now....

I've discovered a new hobby that I probably should have gotten into a long time ago: Web hunting for other college ministries.

I have the privilege of working with and for people who believe with all their hearts that if you're going to invest time doing something, you may as well knock it out of the park (and when it comes to what we do each weekend, you'd better).

I am also in the fun position of being in charge of a college ministry that is larger and more successful than anything I've ever led thus far and has more possibilities than I can legibly write down in the short amount of time I'm taking to post this, so, having come to the conclusion that it's more fun to learn from other people's mistakes so that you can make your own and not theirs, I am now jumping from website to website trying to find people who know more than me so I can bother them or buy them lunch, whichever comes first (Rich Wilkerson Jr., I'm looking in your direction).

So tell me, who's mistakes are you trying to learn from?

So, Mauricio, how'd your staff meeting with the video team go the other night?

Creative breaks are fun!

Are there any other caption ideas that I should know about?

Colombia!

Hey gang,

I'm sitting here in my cousin's bedroom, getting ready to knock out; I'm not officially married yet (48 hours!) so I guess it's okay for me to blog.

This will probably be the last thing I post for a while (if you see a something up here next week, it's probably a bad sign), but I had a lot on my mind, and thought it would be cool to look back on the kinds of thoughts that were going through my head in the days before Steph and I got married.

Simply put, this is turning out to be one of the best weeks of my life. Everywhere I look I see my family united and celebrating in a way I haven't seen in ages. I think the coolest thing about it is the realization of how blessed Steph and I truly are. Two years ago when we determined the direction our courtship was going to go in, I don't think either one of us had the slightest idea that the kind of moments we're experiencing this week could even happen. 

It's like God took what, at times, seemed like a tedious amount of obedience and went to work blessing it in masse. 

And now, in less than two days, I get to walk into a marriage more sure than I've ever been that this was the way it was always meant to be, that it was always going to be her. Moments like today as we rode in a carriage together through the old city in Cartagena are reminders that obedience is so worth it, that we didn't keep ourselves pure in vain.

I'm reminded that all of the bone-headed habits and self-centered ways of thinking that I'm having to break myself of daily are worth it because the effort puts me in a place where the kind of marriage dreams are made of isn't just a pipe dream, but rather becomes a distinct possibility.

I was talking to Matt at our table this evening (he's the officiating Pastor, by the way. I haven't done any fact checking on this, but all the same I'm pretty sure he's the first Arkansan to ever preside over a wedding in Colombia) about the whole thing, and we both realized how grateful we are to work at a church under a leader who teaches us to never quit in the pursuit of our full potential, and nights like tonight confirm that yes, it's worth it.

I realize that I'm writing this now to the young guy or girl who's wondering if pursing a relationship the way God asks us to in his word is worth it.

Please trust me when I say that it is.

This week is proof of it.

Thought Avalanche

I am sitting in my room trying to wrap my brain around the events that have transpired over the last week, but it's not really working.

Let me try again.

Did I really see almost 50 people experience a college ministry Monday night that not even a year ago was made up of 12 people in my backyard?

And Thursday? The night where Steph and I got to go have dinner with Matt & Jenn and talk over what our wedding ceremony is going to be like? That was fun in all kinds of ways, because it's no longer just me or just her, but it's starting to become an us. 

And then of course Friday night just blew my mind right out of the water....if you weren't there,  just know that it was a ceremony (service? Send-off? Roast? I still don't know quite what to call it. Any ideas, Brian?) that I will remember fondly for the rest of my life. The long and the short of it is, that I know some world class people.

Which is why I'm okay with writing a post that on the front end may look like a laundry list of how much better my week was than yours.

Collaboration. Around FRC, it's the notion that who you do life with matters. The quality of the people you spend your time around (or who allow you to spend your time around them on less endearing days) affects the quality of your life.

And thus, this week.

I get to lead a college ministry along with a crew of passionate and sharp people who practically run the thing like they were getting paid to do it, and so together we get to experience more relational success than we've ever had and the launch of a multi-campus college ministry.

The day Steph and I get married is going to be that much more special because the guy who's officiating it has been my friend for years.

And then Friday night was pretty much a culmination of all the things I love about the people I get to do life with. Steph and I are launching into married life knowing that we are surrounded by the best community of people we could ever have asked for...

So, yeah, this post can pretty much be summarized like this: the right people can make all the difference in a life.

My life right now

A sample itinerary in inner monologue form for all you folks wondering where all my posts went:

~ 5:30 am ... Wake up. 

Freak out because you have less than a month until your wedding. 

Calm down.

Work on wedding stuff until time to leave for work (the quiet time goes somewhere in here usually).

~ 8:30 am ... Make phone calls while driving.

Church stuff until lunch

~ 12:30 ... Insert wedding stuff and possible meal here (with phone calls thrown in for good measure).

~ 2 PM ... Return to church and edit/schedule/shoot/produce/design/yank out hair until dinner time.

~ 8 PM ... Find food while working on/thinking about wedding stuff.

~ 9 PM ... Go see Stephanie and remember why I'm doing all this.

~ 11 PM ... Go home and work some more on wedding stuff or random posts so people know you're alive. Try to carve out time for silence and stillness so you don't go crazy.

~ 2 AM ... Sleep.

Throw in meetings, location shoots, planning/teaching college ministry, seeing my fiancé, and the occasional bathroom break, and it's a wonder that I'm still able to function sometimes...however, considering the fact that I get to marry Stephanie when all's said and done, I'd say that it's worth it.

 

29 days, people. 29 days.

AHEM

I will be married in 34 days. 

That is all.

(insert barely-contained glee)